Minister without frontiers

Given the significance of this weekend’s vote, Europhiles might be forgiven for thinking that Haigneré’s vision is of waking up on Monday morning to find that the country has given a resounding ‘Yes’ to the EU constitution. But no.

President Jacques Chirac plucked Haigneré from political obscurity a year ago for a government post that, when he later called a referendum on the horizon, took on particular importance. Her appointment was announced on 1 April 2004 and many were taken aback by Chirac’s choice of a political novice for such a job. But, it was not a poisson d’avril. Indeed, some saw it as a clever move by the president to promote one of the country’s most-admired and best-known women for the ‘face’ of the referendum campaign.

But with the ‘No’ vote stubbornly holding up in the French opinion polls, the ‘Yes’ campaigners face an uphill task. Sunday’s vote could make or break the EU’s constitution.

Haigneré is a doctor turned astronaut turned politician. She was born in Le Creusot, the industrial centre of France, in 1957. As she is quick to point out, it was a year of destiny for both Europe and the space age, when the Soviets successfully launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik 1, and the Treaty of Rome was signed, founding the European Economic Community.

The middle of three children, Haigneré has a brother, who works in sports management, and a sister, who is a schoolteacher.

Her mother was a housewife and her father a construction engineer. She says the “rich and varied” experiences gleaned from his many travels opened her mind to a world way beyond the confined community in which she grew up.

It was a comfortable, middle-class upbringing in which sport played a particularly important part. Naturally inquisitive, she says that watching the 1969 Moon-landing on television whetted her appetite for a career in space.

“For me it was enormously exciting…the moment when dream and reality merged. When, years later, I had the opportunity to become an astronaut myself, it seemed the natural thing to do.”

After obtaining her doctorate in medicine, she worked in the rheumatology clinic and rehabilitation department at Cochin hospital in Paris.

In 1985 she beat off competition from more than 1,000 candidates for a sought-after place at the CNES, the French Space Agency.

Seven years later, she was assigned as back-up cosmonaut to Jean-Pierre Haigneré, who, at the time, was only the third French person to have ventured into space (the first was Jean-Loup Chretien in 1982).

It was to prove a fruitful relationship, both professionally and personally.

Under the tutelage of her future husband, she started training to become an astronaut in Star City near Moscow.

Over time, Haigneré, a fluent speaker of Russian (she also speaks English and Spanish), became so familiar with the complex that she says she knows it better than her home district of Paris.

In August 1996, she entered the record books by becoming only the fourth French person – and the country’s first woman – in Space. She spent 16 days on board Russia’s Mir Space Station where she conducted a series of medical and biological experiments. After clambering out of the capsule on her return to Earth, she said: “I saw something very powerful, very intense.

“It was a little unreal. The colours and lights were marvellous. The setting of the Sun and the rising of the Moon up there is unreal.”

Two years later, in 1998, at the age of 41, she gave birth to her first child. She has since reportedly said that her daughter Carla often chastises Chirac for “taking mummy away too much” in her ministerial job.

Jean Coisne, communications manager at the Cologne-based European Astronaut Centre, where Haigneré was based for three years, says her “sheer determination” to get where she has should serve as a role model for women everywhere. “Thanks to Claudie, French women are now showing a real interest in following in her footsteps and becoming astronauts,” he says.

In 2001 Haigneré became the first European woman to board the International Space Station (ISS) on a ten-day mission to deliver an emergency escape capsule.

She and her two Russian cosmonaut colleagues were taken to the launch site in Kazakhstan by the same bus that carried Russian hero Yuri Gagarin, the first man to fly into Space, to his rocket in 1961.

Haigneré took along her teddy bear for comfort. It is now one of her daughter’s prized possessions.

On her return, Haigneré, who was responsible for mooring the Soyuz vessel, said her only regret was not having had more time to live among the crew and “to be able to look at the Earth through the porthole”.

Also in 2001, she married Jean-Pierre Haigneré, Carla’s father. It is her second marriage, her first having ended in divorce.

Away from work, her hobbies include contemporary art, golf, reading and, in particular, gymnastics, something she was sufficiently talented at to have pursued as a career.

In 2002, the quietly spoken Haigneré made an unexpected leap into politics with her appointment as research minister in the government of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, an appointment seen at the time as part of a concerted effort to increase the number of non-politicians and women in the French administration.

Other than being a self-confessed “committed” European, she had no known political affiliations and her scientific background made her an obvious choice for the research portfolio.

But it was her appointment two years later as European minister that really raised eyebrows, not least among her colleagues in the centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, Chirac’s party.

In some quarters, the appointment was seen as strategic manoeuvring by Michel Barnier to allow him to keep a firm hold on European affairs as French foreign minister.

One senior French MEP from the centre-right UMP party who knows her well said Haigneré herself was even surprised to be offered the job. He says she has since told him that she feels she has been sidelined by Barnier and other senior ministers during the referendum campaign.

“She’s very bright, yet unassuming and is certainly held in high esteem in France. But Claudie is simply the wrong person in this particular job,” he says.

“The main political issue in France has been ratification of the constitution and to be able to campaign well on such an issue you need solid political experience and knowledge of the treaty’s legal aspects.

“Unfortunately, she lacks both. She’s not a professional politician and hasn’t made much of an impression.

“Why she was given the job, I don’t know but for a battle like this you should have your experienced generals in charge.

“She was appointed before Chirac decided there would be a referendum so, maybe, the importance of the post was underestimated…it would not have looked good to change horses in mid-stream.”

In a recent interview with a Swiss magazine, Haigneré insisted she has felt at “ease” working alongside Barnier. UMP party MEP Margie Sudre says Haigneré has accomplished her task with “class and charm”.

A member of Haigneré’s cabinet says: “I can understand some people being surprised by her appointment and Barnier has steered the campaign. But I don’t think she feels she has been marginalised.”

With the outcome still on a knife-edge, Haigneré might be tempted to keep her good luck charm – the teddy bear she took into Space – by her sidethis Sunday.

Biography

1957: Born, Le Creusot, France

1981: Obtains doctorate in medicine

1985: Wins a place at CNES, the French Space Agency

1995: Starts astronaut training at Star City, near Moscow

1996: Becomes first French woman in Space on board Russia’s Mir Space Station

2001: Becomes first woman from European Space Agency on board the International Space Station